In 1959 New York City announced a "slum clearance plan" by Robert Moses that would displace 2,400 working class and immigrant families, and dozens of businesses, from the Cooper Square section of Manhattan's Lower East Side. Guided by the belief that urban renewal should benefit - not displace - residents, Frances Goldin and her neighbors formed the Cooper Square Committee and launched a campaign to save the neighborhood. Over five decades they fought politicians, developers, white flight, government abandonment, blight, violence, arson, drugs, and gentrification - cyclical forces that have destroyed so many working class neighborhoods across the US. Through tenacious organizing and hundreds of community meetings, they not only held their ground but also developed a vision of community control. Fifty three years later, they established the state's first community land trust - a diverse, permanently affordable neighborhood in the heart of the "real estate capital of the world."
Self
Koolhaas Houselife portrays one of the masterpieces of contemporary architecture. The film lets the viewer enter into the house's daily intimacy through the stories and daily chores of Guadalupe Acedo, the housekeeper, and the other people who look after the building. Pungent, funny and touching.
A young photographer's home is haunted by it's former residents.
Sonic sends TikToks to his husband Shadow everyday but Shadow never respond, Sonic thinks his husband Shadow doesn't love him and don't care about him, they fight and Shadow makes Sonic cry and now Shadow doesn't know what to do.
A woman with a tragic past rents her bungalow to a man who loves cooking, but according to her distorted mind he uses his knives more than he should.
Magical Super-8 (shown on 16mm) single frame portrait of the Notre Dame cathedral featuring luminous light and a dense score incorporating players from the square. - Early Monthly Segments
Filmed over 3 years in Homs, accompanying 2 outstanding young men from the time they were only dreaming of freedom to the time when they are forced to change course. Basset, the 19yo national football team goalkeeper, who became an outspoken demonstration leader in the city, then an icon revolution singer, till he becomes a fighter... a militia leader. Ossama, his 24yo friend, renowned citizen journalist, cynical pacifist... as his views are forced to change, until he is detained by army secret service. It is the story of a city, of which the world have heard a lot, but never really got closer than news, never really had the chance to experience how a war erupted. a modern times epic of youth in war time.
A portrait of a couple, living in poverty and prostitution. Couple is joined by a second woman, and problems escalates.
When Ethan, the needy nice guy, is dumped by his fiancée, he asks his misogynist older brother, Kyle, to help him win her back.
O Jin-u of a rich family and a female private tutor at his house are in love, but his family are against their marriage and send him to America. Before he leaves for America, they hold their own wedding and vow to love forever. But once out of sight, her devotion weakens with time and falls in love with Jin-u's friend Seong-hun. Hearing about the fact, Jin-u hurriedly returns to fight a duel with him...
Two guys move into an apartment, where the old owner causes them a lot of trouble
Abdel’s quiet life is upended by the arrival of his extroverted cousin, who’s staying for the summer. Fatima craves a more stable life since she’s starting a new job as a supermarket cashier. Toussaint, while fishing, finds a bottle washed up on the shore, and there’s a message inside. Straddling the line between fiction and documentary, Les Rayons Gamma / Gamma Rays is a dramedy filmed with young, non-professional actors from immigrant communities.
A Goya award winning short animation.
When AIDS struck in the early 1980s, a scientist and a movie star did not have to respond - but they did. Dr. Mathilde Krim and Elizabeth Taylor joined forces to create amfAR, the Foundation for AIDS Research. The fight against HIV has never been the same. The Perfect Host reveals how two powerful and very different women came together, and what their combined efforts achieved. With passion and wit, Taylor wielded celebrity as a weapon against government indifference while Krim's commitment to science ensured support for the most promising research areas. Today, the only man cured of AIDS can thank research championed by Mathilde Krim. Visually dazzling and emotionally compelling, this story offers a surprising perspective on the still ongoing fight against AIDS.
Spring (Teresa Mo) and her daughter, Autumn (Karena Ng), work respectively as a Designer and Steward Manager in a Multinational Enterprise of Men’s Underwear founded by their brother and uncle Hugo(Raymond Wong). To win back his ex-girlfriend, Miao (Hai Qing), who is now a World Class Fashion Designer; Hugo pretends his business to be at a brink of bankruptcy and hoping to recruit her for help. Miao seizes the opportunity to take revenge on Hugo and she demands him to establish a new Fashion Line name to achieve positive results before she will accept the offer.
In this Dadaist love story there are many recurring themes: death and rebirth, multiple identities and doppelgangers, false prophets, love and love lost, the corruption of power and fragility of what is real or true. Using a recreation of Marcel Duchamp's Etant Donnes, a trickster of old mythology awakens Maria Martins (played by Kim Gordon) from the dream state. She learns that her lover, a captive Marcel Duchamp, has been kidnapped by a group of terrorists and forced to recite the chess moves to a historical match. Maria must enter a deep and strange rabbit hole to save her love.
A crazed military explosives expert heads for Los Angeles with an RV full of explosives, intending to blow up a rock festival and kill all the "hippies". An army officer is sent to stop him.
A dangerous agent for the Mexican government is sent to capture a powerful drug lord.
Caracas has been changing since the nineteenth century this is a story that tries to explain why the Venezuelan capital is complex, chaotic and fertile. In light of these new evidences, community experiments, social awareness and organization of people, seem to be the necessary ingredients to rescue a metropolis that is not yet completely lost.
A tropical fish shop in the East End of London, the last of what used to be many. Tiny, watery dramas inside fish tanks accompany the thoughts of local fish-keepers, while father and son Big Tel and Little Tel work to keep the shop alive.
A biography documentary of the Argentine modernist architect Amancio Williams.
An ancestral house builds itself, comes to life, and shows us its story spanning one hundred fifty years. Through the ages, it allows us to perceive the passage of time.
The Fall of the I-Hotel brings to life the battle for housing in San Francisco. The brutal eviction of the International Hotel's tenants culminated a decade of spirited resistance to the razing of Manilatown. The Fall of the I-Hotel works on several levels. It not only documents the struggle to save the I-Hotel, but also gives an overview of Filipino American history.
“El Apagón: Aquí Vive Gente” is a documentary directed by Bad Bunny and Blanca Graulau. This 23-minute film explores the socio-economic challenges in Puerto Rico, focusing on the effects of power outages and gentrification driven by the real estate and energy sectors. Through visuals and personal stories, the documentary highlights the experiences of Puerto Rican communities facing these issues.
Toronto filmmaker Charles Officer profiles the young people of Villaways Park, a housing project on brink of historic change.
The film Together we cycle investigates the critical events that has led to the revival of the Dutch cycling culture. For most people, cycling in the Netherlands, seems a natural phenomenon. However, until the 1970s the development of mobility in the Netherlands followed trents across the globe. The bicycle had had its day, and the future belonged to the car. The only thing that had to be done was to adapt cities to the influx of cars. Then Dutch society took a different turn. Against all odds people kept on cycling. The question why this happened in the Netherlands, has not an easy answer. There are many factors, events and circumstances that worked together, both socially and policy-wise. In Together we cycle, key players tell the story of the bumpy road which led to the current state. Where cycling is an obvious choice for most citizens.
Sitting at the intersection of two main arteries of traffic on Melbournes Northside is a giant yellow rat that is pointing, with a long gnarled claw, to its explicitly large bottom. This yellow rat is the mascot for the small business Glenlyon Motors. This unusual mascot and the absence of an explanation for its existence has many residents of Melbournes north side puzzled. 'A Rats Arse' finally answers the question on every Northside residents lips - “Why?!” - and along the way reveals something about identity, values, community, and the people who exist within them.
Kathy's family left on a Saturday morning in 1965. The rumble of bulldozers echoed through the neighborhood, and her block was empty. Federally-funded urban renewal had arrived in Charlottesville, scattering dozens of families like Kathy's. The once-vibrant African American community, built by formerly enslaved men and women who had secured a long-denied piece of the American dream, disappeared.
Sundance award-winning director Julia Kwan’s documentary Everything Will Be captures the subtle nuances of a culturally diverse neighbourhood—Vancouver’s once thriving Chinatown—in the midst of transformation. The community’s oldest and newest members offer their intimate perspectives on the shifting landscape as they reflect on change, memory and legacy. Night and day, a neon sign that reads "EVERYTHING IS GOING TO BE ALRIGHT" looms over Chinatown. Everything is going to be alright, indeed, but the big question is for whom?
Targeted for several failed redevelopment plans dating back to the days of Robert Moses, Willets Point, a gritty area in New York City known as the “Iron Triangle,” is the home of hundreds of immigrant-run, auto repair shops that thrive despite a lack of municipal infrastructure support. During the last year of the Bloomberg Administration, NYC’s government advanced plans for a “dynamic” high-end entertainment district that would completely wipe out this historic industrial core. The year is 2013, and the workers of Willets Point are racing against the clock to forestall their impending eviction. Their story launches an investigation into New York City’s history as the front line of deindustrialization, urban renewal, and gentrification.
Rua de Santa Catarina, a street that was formerly home to dozens of local businesses and hundreds of Porto residents, now sees a crowd of tourists attracted by the cheap, disposable amenities that are popping up everywhere at once. Gentrification has decontextualized Portuguese culture, rendering the landscape uncanny. The Basin Woman, a symbol of the female workers of the historic Bolhão Market, is chased down by seagulls in the midst of this transcendent chaos.
Filmed over four years, this documentary focuses on the impacts of gentrification as gay white professionals move into a largely black working-class neighborhood in Columbus, Ohio.
A short film about the changing face of London Soho and the implications of gentrification on Mimi, an aging transvestite.
On the tiny island of Martha's Vineyard, where presidents and celebrities vacation, trophy homes threaten to destroy the islands unique character. Twelve years in the making, One Big Home follows one carpenters journey to understand the trend toward giant houses. When he feels complicit in wrecking the place he calls home, he takes off his tool belt and picks up a camera.
The baker, the pie-maker and the diminished long-term community of Hoxton Street face gentrification in this compelling portrait of a rapidly changing London.
Tell Them We Were Here is an inspirational feature-length documentary about eight artists who show us why art is vital to a healthy society and reminds us that we are stronger together.